Maritime official floats a career idea for youths

Captain encourages inner-city students to consider jobs aboard ships

December 04, 2012|Dawn Turner Trice

Capt. Mark Stevenson, president of the Chicago branch of the International Shipmasters Association, says the widening of the Panama Canal will lead to increased demand for maritime personnel in the Great Lakes area. (Abel Uribe, Chicago Tribune)

It's a safe bet that for many youngsters a career in the maritime industry isn't one that immediately leaps to mind. Capt. Mark Stevenson wants to change that — particularly among black students.

Stevenson is the president of the International Shipmasters Association, Chicago Lodge. His yearlong term ends Jan. 5.

Among his duties this year has been to encourage Chicago's elementary and high school students to consider a career in maritime. Stevenson said the Great Lakes will soon be getting an increase in ship traffic from around the world because of the widening of the Panama Canal, expected to be completed in 2014.

"They've increased the size of the locks to handle the really big ships," he said. "Doubling the capacity of the Panama Canal will impact our 200-acre port. Within the next five years, ship captains, mechanics, engineers and navigation experts will be more important than ever."

He said this year, for the first time, African-Americans are in high-ranking positions in three of the most important agencies protecting Chicago's waterways — the shipmasters association, the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit Chicago and the Chicago Police Marine Unit.

Lt. Cmdr. Stacy Miller is the executive officer of the Marine Safety Unit, and Lt. Erroll Davis is the commanding officer in the Chicago Police Marine Unit.

"I just think it's important for us to be role models," Stevenson said. "The new 31st Street harbor on the South Side is a 1,000-boat harbor that's going to be perfect for breeding a new generation of mariners interested in more than just pleasure cruising."

You're probably familiar with the U.S. Coast Guard and the Police Marine Unit, both of which police the waterways, enforcing the law and leading rescue efforts. But the shipmasters association is less known. Representing about 8,000 ship captains in the Great Lakes and in Canada, the association's Chicago chapter was founded in 1886.

The international shipmasters are sworn members of the United States Merchant Marine, and their mission during wartime has been to transport soldiers, sailors and their weapons to the theater of war.

"During peacetime it's our responsibility to work with Homeland Security to secure our shores," he said. "But if there was a terrorist attack, for example, in downtown Chicago, all of the ship captains become active-duty military personnel."

Stevenson, 56, said that ever since he was a boy growing up in Richmond, Va., he wanted to become a captain.

But at 18, he went into the Army rather than the Navy. He later earned a bachelor's degree in biology and ichthyology, studying the invasive species of plants and fish brought into Lake Michigan via big ships.

Although he worked full time teaching high school biology and chemistry in the Chicago Public Schools district, he spent many off-hours on ships, mopping the decks and cleaning bathrooms to earn the requisite hours to become a captain.

"You have to spend the time," Stevenson said. "I learned how to drive a ship by hanging around the bridge as much as (the officers) would let me. I didn't mind bringing them coffee and making friends. Once in a while they let me hold the wheel, and when they planted that seed, there was no turning back."

Seven years ago, he went to captain school in North Carolina and has been a shipmaster ever since. He said he has driven most of the tour boats docked at Chicago's Navy Pier and is now a mega yacht captain, driving for private owners. He can drive any vessel up to 100 tons.

Stevenson said that for many years jobs in the maritime industry had been hard to come by for blacks. Although they may have learned about the industry while in the military, few transitioned into jobs in the private sector.

"It's just like the airline industry," Stevenson said. "How many of the Tuskegee airmen left the Air Force and got jobs flying commercial planes? They just weren't able to work in the industry.

"Today you can find black airline pilots and black airline mechanics and flight attendants. But we in the maritime industry are 50 years behind."

Doors are opening, however, and being able to tell students that blacks are at the helm of the city's maritime agencies is a great selling point to youths who ordinarily don't hear much about these types of jobs.

"I'm taking questions from kids who say, 'How is it that a black girl can be a captain?'" Stevenson said. "They need to know that it's not only possible for boys and girls, but lucrative. This is a multibillion-dollar industry."